Welcome to our protection for the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix from Suzuka. One of many very nice tracks, up there with Monza, Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps for my cash. And maybe the Circuit of the Americas, too. It felt a bit bizarre once we had the Japanese Grand Prix at Mount Fuji however Suzuka simply feels proper now.
What can we anticipate from at the moment’s race? Nicely, the RB20 being the sensible all-round automobile that it’s was anticipated to be the category of the sphere and that has turned out to be the case. Max Verstappen took his fourth pole place of the season’s 4 races, although it was by a slender margin from team-mate Sergio Perez.
Simply 0.066sec separated the Purple Bull pair. Though each of Verstappen’s laps have been ok for pole, each of Perez’s laps have been inside a tenth of the Dutchman’s equal efforts. That doesn’t occur all that usually. In third is the person who completed second in final 12 months’s race, McLaren’s Lando Norris who was slightly below three-tenths off the tempo. First rate effort. It was a little bit of a mixture of automobiles down from there with the order behind being: Sainz (Ferrari), Alonso (Aston Martin), Piastri (McLaren), Hamilton (Mercedes), Leclerc (Ferrari), Russell (Mercedes) and Tsunoda (RB).
The consequence represented a mirrored image of the established order in 2024: Purple Bull quickest however then uncertainty within the chasing pack. Is {that a} cause to be despondent? Maybe, however there are causes to be cheerful. Firstly, Perez was near Verstappen. Secondly that pack was each nearer inside itself and much nearer to the entrance than final 12 months. In 2023 the hole between first and second was 0.581sec, the hole between first and fourth 0.665sec and the gfap between first and sixth practically a full second. It is a huge enchancment within the aggressive order and on a monitor which is a fairly good bellwether for the measure of an F1 automobile.
Does this imply we would see a aggressive race? Nicely, I wouldn’t get your hopes up an excessive amount of however it will be good for Perez to be a fixture in Verstappen’s race and hopefully for a number of the bunch behind to have the ability to disrupt issues a bit of. Final 12 months Verstappen beat Norris by slightly below 20 seconds. So let’s see what occurs this 12 months.
The race begins at 6am BST and we can have all of the build-up, reside updates and response from Suzuka.
